Forever Angels

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  Suddenly a grin split Rain's face and he lifted a hand, almost as though signalling a gesture of concurrence to someone overhead. Tess started to draw back in Stone's arms to try to follow Rain's gaze, but he murmured softly to her and lifted his hand from her back to draw her head onto his shoulder again. With a contented sigh, she complied.

  ***

  Chapter 23

  "I'm damned sure not going to to stay here," Tess ground out the next morning after Silver Eagle and the children had ridden off. "What if something happens to you out there alone — like that snakebite? You could lay there and die!"

  "You'll do what the hell I tell you to do!" Stone fired back. "I've told you over and over that it's my rules that go around here!"

  "Well, Mr. Boss Man, that might work on the kids, but I'm a grown woman. Just how do you think you're going to make sure I stay behind? Huh? Tie me to the bedpost? Or maybe you'll tie me and Lonesome out beside the privy and leave us each a pan of water and bowl of food."

  "Don't tempt me. Only thing is, I'd have to explain to Jasper why he had two extra animals to take care of."

  "Animals! Why, you overbearing louse! You...you chauvinistic pig!"

  "Oink, oink," Stone muttered.

  Tess quickly clenched her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down hard. She wasn't going to laugh. No, darn it....

  She balled her hands into fists and plopped them on her hips, glaring at Stone. He glared back. She had to retort — it was her turn. But she couldn't yell at him with her lip caught like that.

  "You...." Big mistake. The giggles penned in her chest erupted. She snorted and Stone wrinkled his nose at her.

  "Here, piggy," he called softly, then got lost in his own laughter when Tess fell onto the bench by the kitchen table, clutching her stomach.

  Stone sat down beside Tess and took her hand. "Look, honey, I have to do this. The Army post at Fort Sill will buy even half-broken horses at a pretty good price. And I promised Jasper Smith he could have his pick of the mares in the herd I bring in if he'd stay here and care for my stock."

  "And how are you going to drive a herd of horses to an Army post all by yourself — even if you do manage to get some this time?" Tess tugged at her hand, trying to ignore the warmth spreading up her arm as Stone's thumb stroked her palm. "For that matter, how are you going to pen them up by yourself? Stone, let go of me. I can't think."

  "Then don't think," Stone whispered. "Just feel." He shifted closer to her on the bench and dropped her hand. But he slipped his arm around her waist and bent to nuzzle her ear, his warm breath sending a cascade of shivers down her body and a throb of desire curling through her veins. He kissed a path down her cheek and nibbled just at the corner of her mouth.

  "That's not going to work," Tess said in as firm a voice as she could manage. "I'm still going with you."

  Stone moved his nibbling to her lips, barely brushing them with cloud-soft caresses. One hand moved to cup the bottom of her breast, while the other stroked her back. Without ever kissing her fully, he moved his mouth to her jawline, down to her soft neck. Nudging aside the collar of her blouse, he very gently nipped at the sensitive spot just above her collarbone, then circled the area with his tongue.

  "So soft," he murmured. "So silky. So beautiful."

  Tess moaned in surrender. The hands she kept ordering to shove him away curled into his hair instead. White hot yearning swept away any chance of conscious thought, and she gave no resistance when Stone cupped her hips and stood, kicking aside the bench to get to the table.

  Wrapping her legs around his trim waist, Tess whimpered in longing and frustration at the denim material covering both their bodies. She instinctively moved against the bulge in Stone's jeans, tightening her legs around him when he gasped and laid her back onto the table.

  He almost grabbed her mouth with his own, and Tess sparred with his tongue, her thrusts and his imitating the movements of their lower bodies. She unbuttoned her own blouse and started on Stone's shirt, fumbling uselessly almost at once when Stone's mouth found one bare breast.

  "God, I want you," Stone growled as he claimed her other breast.

  "Please. Please, yes."

  Lonesome's barks rang through the door as he surged to his feet on the porch. His frenzied yaps penetrated Tess's drugged senses, and she clutched at Stone when he buried his face against her neck and whispered a vile expletive.

  "S...someone's coming," she said in a shaky voice.

  "Jasper," Stone muttered. Very reluctantly, he braced his hands on the table and gazed down at her. "Lonesome could probably hold Jasper off for a while," he said in a soft voice. "But when I make love to you, darlin', it's not going to be a hurry up deal. It's gonna be soft and slow, then wicked and wild. By the time we reach the clouds, we're gonna know every inch of each other's bodies. All right?"

  Tess gulped and nodded her head. Stone stepped back, then grasped her hands to pull her up. His eyes still smoldered behind his slit lids, and he ran them over her face, down her upper body, branding her as his own. Twining his fingers in her hair, he bent for one last, searing kiss.

  "I love you, Tess," he said after he released her. "Remember that while I'm gone, will you?" Without waiting for her answer, Stone turned away and strode across the floor.

  Tess flinched when he let the screen door bang behind him. She lifted trembling fingers and caressed her swollen lips, her body still tingling with frustrated desire. Slowly she took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart and bring a semblance of sanity to her tumbling thoughts.

  While I'm gone. The gravelly words echoed in her mind. And what would happen if she tumbled back through time while Stone was gone? It was the perfect opportunity, of course. She could ride undisturbed up to the hillside and search for the time warp — try her damnedest to figure out how it had happened in the first place and how to get back through.

  For a second, Tess concentrated on trying to recall the sequence of events during the few minutes before she found herself in Oklahoma in 1893. She remembered looking up at the sky, her attention drawn by what she imagined was the sound of human voices. But it couldn't have been — she'd been alone on the mountainside.

  Then the stabbing pain in her twisting ankle — her fall over the cliff. She frowned as another memory intruded. She hadn't just imagined voices. She'd thought she heard a sneeze while those bush roots were tearing free of the soil.

  Huh. Tess suddenly realized that she really didn't give a darn how it had happened — she just didn't want it to happen again in reverse. She didn't want Stone to come home and find her missing. She didn't want to return to 1993 and plunge herself into clawing up that career heap again.

  She'd be happier here, with the man she loved and who loved her. More content in this primitive log cabin than in her apartment, filled with gadgets she had no time to enjoy.

  Tess set her lips into a determined slant and slid off the table, buttoning her blouse as she headed for the bedroom she shared with Flower. She had to stay away from that darned hillside. That was all there was to it. If she avoided the place, it couldn't snatch her away from Stone.

  And with Stone was where she darned sure wanted to be.

  Grabbing the backpack that set at the foot of the bed, Tess turned around and retraced her steps. He hadn't left yet, because his saddlebags, packed with provisions for his trip, still lay on the countertop. She swung them over her other shoulder and pushed open the screen door.

  ~~

  Michael down-shifted the gearshift and swerved the cloud car into a turn. "Hang on, Angie," he called across the console. "We can go back now. They're done necking and she's headed for the barn. I think there's gonna be a different kind of fireworks this time."

  Angela clutched the dashboard and grabbed at a curl of blond hair whipping around her face. "Michael! Oh, do be careful. Aren't you breaking the speed limit?"

  "Speed limit? Up here? Come on, Angie. Shoot, we don't even have to worry about running into any airplanes
in this sky. Isn't it great?"

  Angela released her hold on the dash and leaned back in her seat. It did feel nice traveling around in the car, instead of under her own power. And Michael wasn't really driving that fast. Besides, he handled that little car awfully capably, his sure hands on the wheel and his shifts of the gears smooth and effortless.

  She tipped her face up and let the wind caress her cheeks. And after all, she wouldn't want Michael to accuse her of trying to be a back seat driver. Men didn't like that sort of thing.

  Too bad their car had to be white. Ever since automobiles had come into use on earth, she'd sort of yearned to ride in a red one. At least Michael's car had a convertible top, like the cars she always admired.

  Michael reached over and tapped Angela on the shoulder. When she glanced questioningly at him, he nodded through the windshield. Angie's mouth rounded in an "O" when she saw the hood of the cloud car change from white to pink, then a deep red.

  "No one can see it anyway," Michael said with a laugh. "Guess we can have it any color you want."

  Angela giggled and thanked him with her eyes. "Maybe I could learn to drive," she said.

  "Don't see why not," Michael replied. "We can have your lessons at night while Tess sleeps."

  "Wonderful," Angela murmured.

  Tess ignored the two men standing beside the barn door and dropped her backpack and Stone's saddlebags before she walked inside. She probably should have at least said a polite hello to the wiry man beside Stone, but she would introduce herself after she had her horse safely saddled. She wouldn't put it past Stone to order Jasper to keep her away from the horses and tack while he was gone.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Stone grabbed Tess's arm before she could enter the tack room.

  "Obviously, I'm going after some tack for one of the horses," she said in a fairly reasonable voice. "What else do you go into a tack room for?"

  "You don't need any tack. You're not going anywhere."

  "Oh, but I am. I told you that in the kitchen."

  "Damn it, I said you weren't!"

  Tess stared up at his furious face and pried Stone's fingers off her arm one by one. She shrugged her shoulder and tilted her chin up an inch, then walked on into the tack room. After lifting a bridle from a peg, she started toward one of the smaller saddles draped over a cross bar.

  The tack room door slammed, plunging the room into dimness. Tess stiffened her back, not deigning to turn around and see if Stone had locked her in or whether he was still in the small room with her. The instant her fingers touched the saddle, she heard Stone's indrawn hiss of breath.

  "I said — you're staying here!"

  "No. I'm not."

  Tess tossed the bridle over her arm and hefted the saddle. Turning, she walked toward the door, where Stone stood blocking her path.

  "Do you realize what almost happened a few minutes ago?" Stone demanded, refusing to budge from the door. "What the hell do you think there is to stop us from makin' love when we're spending nights alone out there chasin' that wild horse herd?"

  "Why, nothing except our own rational minds, I guess," Tess murmured. "After all, we're adults."

  "Rational? I loose any sense of rationality when I touch you. And you don't have any better control than I do!"

  Tess stared up into his scowling face and quirked her lips when Stone jammed his hands into his pockets — probably to keep from either pulling her into his arms or strangling her, she figured. She shifted the saddle in her arms and tossed a straggling curl from her forehead.

  "This thing's starting to get heavy. Are you going to move?"

  "No!"

  "You're going to have a heck of a time going after those horses and standing here guarding me at the same time. Which horse should I take?"

  "None of them. Those horses belong to me, and I refuse to give you permission to ride any of them."

  "What are you going to do? Have me arrested for horse theft? Golly gee, do they still hang people for stealing horses these days?"

  Stone mumbled a curse and threw open the door. Muttering something about damned fool women who didn't know their place, he stomped toward the barn entrance. Swinging back around, he watched Tess cross the dirt floor toward one of the stalls, where a horse stood with its brown head thrust out.

  "Not that damned mare," he said angrily. "She's in foal. Take the gelding in the next stall."

  "Whatever you say," Tess called back in a sweet voice.

  "Now you follow orders," Stone growled loud enough for Tess to hear. "Just as long as what I say agrees with what you want to do." He raised his voice a notch. "I'm leavin' in thirty seconds, with or without you. So you better know how to saddle your own horse, because you're not gonna get a damned bit of help from me."

  Tess heaved the saddle over the stall door, then opened it and led the gray gelding through. She expertly slipped his halter off and the bridle on, then looped the reins through a round ring beside the stall. Sliding the saddle blanket from beneath the saddle, she swung it over the gelding's back and smoothed it carefully. The saddle followed and as she reached beneath the gelding's stomach for the other end of the cinch, she glanced at the barn door.

  "Are my thirty seconds up yet?" she called.

  Stone snorted and disappeared from sight.

  ***

  Chapter 24

  Shooting stars flared periodically across the ebony sky, and Tess mentally counted them instead of sheep in her mind. She gave that up when she realized she'd been counting Stone's breaths instead, timing her own intakes to match his. He lay on the other side of the fire, evidently not having the problem of sleeplessness Tess found herself dealing with.

  Darn it anyway, she just couldn't figure him out. Always before, he'd never been at a loss for words to tell her exactly how she was irritating him. All this day, though, he had communicated with her in grunts and hand motions — and only those when absolutely necessary. Otherwise, he totally ignored her.

  Supper had been a deadly quiet affair. She seethed again as she recalled Stone fixing his own meal of fried bacon and beans, then piling it onto his plate and walking over to a nearby rock to eat. He hadn't even left her one slice of bacon or a measly bean. He had, however, left a portion of his food on the plate and set it down for Lonesome, who had sat with cocked ears watching Stone eat.

  It was a darned good thing she had her own backpack with her. A nearby stream furnished water, and she had boiled a freeze-dried dinner of noodles and sauce. Tess smiled a satisfied smirk as she remembered catching Stone's gaze on her own meal as she twirled the noodles around her camp kit fork and ate them with gusto. She'd bet a week's pay her noodles had tasted better than that cold can of beans! Lonesome had gobbled his own share of that meal too, and now lay curled at Tess's side on her sleeping bag.

  Tess reached down and scratched a brown ear. "Guess you know who packs tastier provisions, don't you, boy?"

  Lonesome shifted to his back and one hind leg rose in the air, hiccuping back and forth in time to Tess's scratches. She giggled softly at the picture he made, sprawled with his belly unprotected, and teasingly shifted the cadence of her fingers on his ear. Two short scratches. A pause. Three scratches this time. Lonesome's leg followed suit.

  At least she never had to second guess the dog's attitude toward her. Ever faithful and loving, Lonesome always came when she called — bounding energetically up to her and forever grateful for a pat or kind word. He never pouted over the few reprimands Tess gave him if he loped too close to her horse's heels and made the gelding skittish. When he stuck his nose into her backpack, he immediately withdrew it at her command, sitting down and lifting a paw apologetically.

  Pouting! Good grief, was Stone pouting because she had defied him and refused to stay at the ranch? Surely not. A grown man of Stone's age should have enough maturity not to...pout?

  Suddenly Tess remembered the first time Granny had appeared on the doorstep of their house in town after her mother's death. S
eldom did Granny ever leave the mountain. In fact, the only time Tess had seen her in town prior to that day was at her mother's funeral, six months before.

  But Granny showed up the first day after school let out for the summer, informing Tess's father in no nonsense tones that she'd come to fetch Tess to spend the summer with her. No, Granny had said, she wasn't going to leave Tess with her father to tend house for him. She didn't much give a darn that Tess's absence meant her father had to prepare his own meals and wash his own clothes. He had three older sons, who could just learn to use that darned washing machine themselves. If they couldn't figure out how to use the stove, there was always the barbecue pit in the back yard, which men were so proud to show their skills on.

  Tess, Granny said, was going back to the mountain with her grandmother — her only other female relative. She needed a woman in her life to talk to, share things with, learn a woman's ways with. Tess would return in the fall in time for school, when Granny would spend a day or so with her helping her get some school clothes together.

  And...Tess grinned to herself. And Granny better not find the house a mess when she got back or she'd have all their hides. She didn't expect her kin to live in squalor just because they figured it was beneath them as males to do housework.

  The house had been clean, too, when she returned. Well, not immaculate, but at least livable. But each time summer approached, her father and brothers had turned grumpy and non-communicative toward Tess — not that they were much better the rest of the year. Their resentment had niggled at Tess until one summer when she discussed it with Granny.

  Granny's voice seemed to float on the night air. "Why, honey, they ain't mad 'cause you're takin' off and leavin' them with all that extra work. They're bent out of shape 'cause they think you oughta be grateful you've got four big men in your life to protect you and tell you what to think and do. So you oughta work your little tail off makin' them comfortable in 'preciation of that. Heck, Tess baby, I'm the one they take offense to. I told them just how the cow was gonna eat the cabbage and they don't take kindly to bein' bossed around by a female."